Elvis Costello

GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT: JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER

A GUEST POSTING by JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER

Beyond Belief – An ICA of Opening Tracks

I loved Jimdoes’ ICA Begin the Begin Part 1: A set of lead-off album tracks that weren’t released as singles. A great concept and a daunting prospect since most LPs tend to lead off with the single hits. Part 2–opening tunes that were also single releases–seemed just too much to take on. Man, the choices are endless.

But I like a challenge. And I also like Elvis Costello. So when JC wrote “I’d rather the TVV community got on board” with our own picks, I narrowed down a top 10 list of Elvis Costello album openers, arranged in sequence like a complete LP. To make it more difficult I added additional criteria: no singles, no cover versions, no co-written songs, and no songs taken from collaborative, compilation or soundtrack albums. Came out like this:

Side A

No Action (This Year’s Model – 1978).
Pony St. (Brutal Youth – 1994).
Uncomplicated (Blood & Chocolate – 1986).
Down Among The Wines And Spirits (Secret, Profane And Sugarcane – 2009).
Brilliant Mistake (King of America – 1986).

Side B

Welcome To The Working Week (My Aim Is True – 1978).
Love For Tender (Get Happy!! – 1980).
Button My Lip (The Delivery Man – 2004).
National Ransom (National Ransom – 2010).
Beyond Belief (Imperial Bedroom – 1982).

JTFL

And here are both sides of the ICA as stand-alone listens.  (JC)

Beyond Belief: A Costello ICA: Side A (15:38)
Beyond Belief: A Costello ICA: Side B (14:46)

 

 

The Affectionate Punch

BONUS (RE) POST: DREAMS CAN COME TRUE

After the thrill of this morning’s exclusive interview with a Grammy award-winning video producer, I can’t but help myself and re-post a video on which my dulcet tones can be heard.

As I said, back on 2 March (just before COVID imposed its grip on all of us), this blogging thing has led to so many amazing things or events in my life, and just when I think it really can’t get any better, something else comes along and tops it.

There have been many occasions, and I’m going back decades to well before all this started, that I wished I could somehow end up in a recording studio doing something like contributing handclaps in the background, just so that I could say I had been part of something truly creative. I’m now almost 57 years old and I really thought that dream would never come true.

Until that day when The Affectionate Punch got in touch and asked if I would consider doing a spoken vocal version of a new song that the collective had just written. It was an immediate ‘yes’ from me but on the proviso that if my effort wasn’t good enough to the ears of the professionals, then I wouldn’t be offended if it ended up not being used.

Here is TAP to offer more in the way of background:-

The idea of a Scars e.p. came about following 2 individual comments that suggested the possibility of differing vocal interpretations of The Affectionate Punch songs. This was mulled over with interest resulting in a resounding yes.

The e.p. consists of 6 vocal interpretations of Scars in addition to 1 instrumental track. Each track has its own cover art.

Scars I has Holocaust Nancy on vocals
Scars II features the talents of Paul McKeever and Amanda Sanderson
Scars III is spoken by The Vinyl Villain with The Additions on vocals
Scars IV has Amanda Sanderson on vocals
Scars V is the instrumental version by The Affectionate Punch
Scars VI is the spoken word version by The Vinyl Villain
Scars VII is a remix by The Pocket Calculator Club

mp3: The Affectionate Punch – Scars III (featuring The Vinyl Villain with The Additions)

It’s a huge understatement to say that I’m incredibly thrilled by all of this. It’s very much a one-off on my part and I’m grateful to have been given the opportunity.

TAP has been quite busy in recent times, and has made a couple more downloads freely available:-

Golly Gee Whizz – a 4-track EP of DIY recordings made between April and September 2020.  Click Here

Please Don’t Make Me Kill You/Honeysuckle Kiss – a digital double-sided single. Both songs were recorded on a laptop some 10 years ago and given a limited release with another project. These versions were remastered in December 2020 when TAP stumbled upon the files.  Click here

You can’t say fairer than having six free songs as a wee Christmas gift, can you?

(But it would be especially nice, if you haven’t done so previously, to make a few purchases of the other excellent TAP material, including the Scars EP, to be found on bandcamp).

JC

R.E.M.

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF R.E.M. (Part 26) : THE COMPANION PIECE

A GUEST POSTING FROM TWO COOL DUDES IN SANTA MONICA

Jonny the Friendly Lawyer writes: – As part of the popular REM singles series I asked JC if it would be okay for TVV-supporter and Hollywood good guy Vincent Landay to offer some thoughts about the video for ‘Crush With Eyeliner’, which Vincent worked on with his friend Spike Jonze.

JC responded, “You have asked a very daft question.” I took that to mean yes, so here’s what Vincent had to say about it over a beer in my backyard (garden).

JTFL: What was the general idea for the video?

Vincent: Spike had the idea that there’d be a teenage band performing a song. It’s supposed to be set in Asia and it’s supposed to be their song. They were to perform the song as if it was their own, not REM’s.

J: Where was it shot?

V: The interiors were mostly shot in the Japanese restaurant Yamato in the Century City Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Then other scenes were shot in downtown LA, little Tokyo, and the subway, which was pretty new at the time and didn’t have many passengers yet. We had no permits so the cop who shows up in the video was actually on the job; he came up to say we’re not allowed to film in the subway. There are also several scenes of the kids driving at night in the Second Street tunnel, which just feels like a modern Asian city.

J: Where did those kids come from?

V: They were individually cast. They weren’t an actual band. I don’t know if any of them knew each other before the shoot. They’re local LA kids, and almost all were about 17 at the time.

J: How long was the shoot?

V: One full day in the restaurant and another night with the kids running around town.

J: How involved were REM?

V: They were super supportive of the idea. They loved it and the fact that they only had cameo appearances. They liked playing the roles of people at a club watching another band. It’s probably one of the most understated appearances by a band in their own video—other than the Oasis video we shot in London but never quite finished. (Ed.: It is featured on the Spike Jonze Director’s Label DVD compilation as “The Oasis Video That Never Happened”).

J: What did the band have to say about the video after it was finished?

V: They loved it or they wouldn’t have let it out. They bought into the idea, and that’s what makes them so cool. Other bands need to be front and center all over the place, and instead they were cool with the idea of totally unknown teenagers starring in a video of their song, as if it was the kids’ song. They looked at their brief appearances like Alfred Hitchcock showing up in his own films. This was back in 1994 – the cameos were like “Easter Eggs” before there was such a thing.

Afterwards Michael Stipe got really interested in filmmaking and formed a production company. His producing partner, Sandy Stern, would frequently send scripts to Spike but none that Spike was especially into. After he had turned down a number of scripts, Sandy told Spike that Michael really wanted to do a film with him; was there anything he was actually interested in? In fact, Spike liked a Charlie Kaufman script for “Being John Malkovich.” It was a spec script, meaning that it was simply intended to show that Kaufman could write a screenplay as he had only written for television up to that point. Charlie didn’t think anyone would ever make it. But Michael and Sandy found out that it hadn’t been optioned yet and obtained the rights. The rest is history, as the saying goes.

J: Anything crazy or surprising about the shoot?

V: It was low budget and guerilla, like it was the kids themselves making the movie. It was shot on super 8, which is a risky format to use because we were shipping Kodachrome film to somewhere in Dallas to be processed. That’s not what you do when you make a video for a major artist. We had no idea how the footage would look until it was developed. And that’s the feel we were going for, that it was coming from the kids.

J: Super 8 handheld cameras?

V: They were actually like my parents’ cameras, the ones they used to make home movies. I remember sitting in our living room at home watching our family movies projected on the wall. I wondered, is that what we’re going to get back?

J: Who else was on the shoot?

V: Lance Acord was the cinematographer and he put together a great lighting team. Lance went on to become a director and his team are now all really successful cinematographers, working on major American shows: Jim Frohna on Transparent, Kris Kachikis on The Unicorn and Shane Hurlbut on big features like Terminator Salvation.

J: Terminator Salvation? Is Shane Hurlbut that guy who Christian Bale infamously threw a tantrum at on set?

V: Same guy. Nothing like that happened on our shoot.

J: Lastly, one of the esteemed contributors to this venerable blog wrote about REM that “Mills is an okay bassist and a crap singer. Berry is at best a passable drummer.” Would you agree?

V: No. Whoever wrote that is an idiot.

JC adds.…..It was so good of Jonny to come up with the idea of asking Vincent if he wanted to come on board, and I’m really thrilled that he did so.  It offers a great and unique insight into R.E.M. when they were at the height of their fame.

I do recall that here in the UK, the video wasn’t aired on Top of the Pops in February 1995.  Instead, we were treated to the band, ‘live’ from Tokyo (the latest location on the world tour) in which everyone paid homage to the video and the image that adorned the sleeve of Monster:-

The folk inside the dancing bears costumes were none other than the members of Grant Lee Buffalo, the support act for the initial part of the world tour. And, as I always like to have a least one song per day on the blog, here’s a very fine track from the album Mighty Joe Moon, released in 1994:-

mp3: Grant Lee Buffalo – Mockingbirds

JC

R.E.M.

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF R.E.M. (Part 26)

I’m with The Robster on the things he’s written about Monster these past two weeks. It’s worth remembering that it was released at a time when R.E.M. were the biggest contemporary musical act on the planet and its contents were greeted by some with a sense of disbelief.  Some music critics were scathing of what had been written, recorded and put out into the shops:-

Monster is so much of a reaction to its predecessors that it can’t help but come across as something of an academic exercise in having fun.  It’s this that distinguishes Monster from recent REM opuses. That, and the steak of disingenuity, make it a hard album to love unreservedly.

The words of Keith Cameron, reviewing the album for NME in September 1994. (It’s worth noting that the same writer had given Automatic for The People a 10/10 review in Vox magazine a few years earlier).

The thing is, from the perspective of the label, it really didn’t matter what the critics thought as the tickets for the world tour shows during 1995 sold out within minutes of being made available – old and new fans alike couldn’t wait to see the band again after such a long hiatus and Monster went straight in at #1 on the back of the mania.

Thinking back to its release, my first listen did bemuse me greatly.  I had assumed the lead-off single to be something of a curveball, a comeback single to throw folk off-guard, and that the album would offer a blend of this was the occasional nod to the recent back catalogue.  Not one bit of it, as it proved to be an all-out attack on the senses.  Even when the tempo slowed to ballad time, the results left the listener feeling a tad unclean and uneasy (but I’ll come to that in Part 28 of this series in the new year!!).

As ever, with any new record, initial listens are accompanied by reading the sleeve notes, although in the era of CDs, the joy was diminished somewhat by the way things were now printed up.  Indeed, so little info was contained with Monster that it could be consumed in the time it took to listen to the opening track which just happened to be the lead-off single, What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? but what caught my attention was this under the heading of additional players

Thurston Moore (Crush W.Eyeliner)

The appearance of the joint-leader of Sonic Youth was genuinely one to look forward to. Just two years earlier, they had come up from the underground in the UK thanks to the album Dirty which had gone Top 10 and had been much played during my daily commute between Glasgow and Edinburgh (one which came to an end a few weeks after the release of Monster as I landed a new job in my home city).  And while Sonic Youth’s own 1994 album, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, hadn’t quite provided the same sort of impact, I was thrilled that the second track on Monster was sure to pay a nod to loud guitars

mp3: R.E.M. – Crush With Eyeliner

I was quite blown away by it, to the extent that I was waiting for the rest of the songs to live up to it, all of which meant I was left bemused as it felt the album had opened with two great songs that the rest hadn’t quite matched. But, as with so many genuinely great albums, the reward comes from repeated listens, and while it might have taken maybe six months or so (the change of job and circumstances meant that I wasn’t quite listening to music as much as I would have liked as the new job also meant that myself and Rachel could now go house-hunting!), by the summer of 95 I was smitten……but not enough to overcome my adversity to outdoor gigs and go see the band at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh when the tour eventually reached Scotland for a sole date.

The thing is, I never thought of Crush With Eyeliner as being an obvious single. Indeed, I didn’t see there being too many singles on the album, but the fact that they were proving to be such big hits only goes to show what little I know….or perhaps fans really just wanted to get their hands on yet more live tracks from the Greenpeace benefit show, as well as the instrumental version of the single made available on 7″ orange-coloured vinyl:-

mp3: R.E.M. – Crush With Eyeliner (instrumental)
mp3: R.E.M. – Fall On Me (live)
mp3: R.E.M. – Me In Honey (live. Greenpeace)
mp3: R.E.M. – Finest Worksong (live, Greenpeace)

At least with Me In Honey, something a bit different was made available as a b-side and to be fair, the band does sound in very good form on all three tracks.

And finally to the 2019 remix.

I’m not a fan when bands do this sort of thing and I avoided going out and purchasing the 25th-anniversary reissue of Monster until I saw a vinyl copy on sale a few months ago, not long after I got myself the new turntable, amp and speakers. I was very pleasantly surprised by everything, to the extent that it actually felt like a whole new, perhaps previously ‘lost’, REM album had emerged blinking in the sunlight from the vaults.

The mix of Crush is one of those which is quite different…..the harsh edge has been removed and the lyric is much easier to pick up. Indeed, it is quite radio-friendly and kind of loses something as a result.

mp3: R.E.M. – Crush With Eyeliner (remix)

It was actually one of the few disappointments on the remix album, but it’s a disappointment of a very mild kind.

Please tune in tomorrow for a special companion piece to this one.  That’s all I’m prepared to say for now, but I reckon you’ll all like it….

JC

Pennycress

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #242: PENNYCRESS

It was back in October 2015 that Song By Toad Records decided to issue a sixteen-track compilation album called David Cameron’s Eton Mess.  Almost all of the singers and bands were, at the time, unknown with very little more than a few tracks available online or via a limited physical release, most often cheaply done on a cassette.  Label owner, Matthew Young, said at the time:-

“Most of the bands are friends and a lot of musicians feature on several of the album’s tracks, one of the reasons why we’ve put the compilation together. It feels like there’s this pool of really talented musicians bubbling away and all sorts of excellent music is starting to emerge from the mix. Bands are forming, breaking up, and starting again all the time. When you see a loose collection of bands connecting like this you never know what is going to happen. A few will disappear, some will do okay, some might pave the way for others, and a few of these bands could go on to do really well.”

The album is available on bandcamp, and there are still some vinyl copies available by mail order.

The album closer is by Pennycress, with the song taken from the cassette/download album, See Us Swell, that had been self-released in the summer of 2014.  Sadly, by the time the Song By Toad compilation was issued, the trio who made up this band – Kate, Seb and Calvin – had long called it a day after what appears to have been no more than a year together.  I found this description of them from December 2014:-

The name Pennycress (originally just Cress) started appearing at the bottom of bills in the summer. From their first show in Glasgow School of Art’s Vic Bar, it was clear, however, that they had both ferocity and texture in equal measure. Since then they’ve blasted their way through a number of show-stealing sets to the point where they really should be the main draw. Theirs is a tight, cohesive take on Olympia, Washington riot grrrl/hardcore. Fired-up teenagers, the world over should be tearing down whatever posters they have on their walls to make way for their Pennycress clippings. Fingers crossed they can capture their spark when recording. If they can, their records will be uncompromising treats.

Going by the few clips I’ve seen of them on you tube, I don’t think the recording process quite caught the spark mentioned in the above review, albeit I haven’t found any live footage of the song included on the SbT compilation.

Judge for yourself:-

mp3: Pennycress – Stopped and Stared

I’ve also learned that Kate, on the break-up of Pennycress, joined the Cardiff-based Joanna Gruesome after their lead vocalist had decided to leave, just a few months after them winning the 2014 Welsh Music Prize.

JC

Various

THE BIG HITS…..30 YEARS ON (12)

At long last, we reach the final part of this series looking back at the UK singles charts of 1990.  As anticipated, most of the new entries over the course of December had a festive theme, but there were a very small number of decent entries, while the final chart of the year, which crossed into the first of 1991, was genuinely surprising.  Here’s the contents of the selection boxes:-

2 December

The month opened with no changes in the Top 4, with Vanilla Ice, The Righteous Brothers, EMF, and Kim Appleby all holding the same positions as they had at the end of November.  The highest new entry, at #5 was no real surprise, nor would its eventual rise to #1, as Cliff Richard unleashes Saviour’s Day on a wholly suspecting nation, thus repeating his success of 1988 with Mistletoe and Wine.

There was a bit of ying to Cliff’s yang with the second-highest new entry as Ms. Ciccone decided she wanted to sex everyone up:-

mp3: Madonna – Justify My Love (#9)

A new song to promote The Immaculate Collection, a greatest-hits album that would fly off the shelves in December and find its way into the stockings of millions across the world.  For someone who had always used MTV and videos to further her career, Madonna came up with a brilliantly effective method to further rack up sales of Justify My Love by filming a promo that was always going to be deemed too sexually explicit for MTV and thus be banned, leading to to the decision to make it available, commercially, as a video single.  It is reckoned, in the USA, that actual single sold around 1 million copies and that 400,000 copies of the video were shifted.

Two bands that had been around for a few years without much commercial success until 1990 also enjoyed new entries this week:-

mp3: The Farm – Altogether Now (#12)
mp3: James – Lose Control (#33)

Altogether Now proved to be the highpoint in the career of The Farm, rising to #4 and spending a total of six weeks in the Top Ten either side of Xmas/New Year.  It was quite fitting for a song that took its inspiration from the Christmas Day truce in 1914 when soldiers on both sides put down their weapons to met in no-mans-land where there was an exchange of gifts and games of football were played.

Lose Control immediately dropped down the chart the following week, but the fact it even made the Top 40 was a sign that the fanbase of James was continuing to grow, leading to them becoming probably the biggest band in the UK in 1991/92.

The best ‘new’ record of the week came in at #22:-

mp3: Yazoo – Situation (1990 remix)

Yup, a full eight years after first appearing as the b-side to Only You, and seven years after the duo had disbanded, one of their most popular and most enduring tracks was given the remix treatment and re-released as a single.  It would climb to #14 the following week.

9 December

Just the one single worth highlighting, as much to demonstrate that club hits still had the capacity to crossover into the mainstream:-

mp3: C&C Music Factory – Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) (feat. Freedom Williams) (#40)

This single would spend 12 weeks all told in the Top 50, finally dropping out in mid-March having peaked at #3. It is still, all these years later, one of the most immediately identifiable dance hits of any era.

16 December

Under the cover of darkness, I’ll just mention that The Sisters of Mercy and Billy Idol sneaked their lastest singles into the charts at #39 and #56 respectively.

23 December

The highest new entry this week was at #73, and the distincyion belonged to A Homeboy, A Hippie and Funki Dredd with a song called Freedom.  Quite clearly, the record industry makers and shakers were too busy partying to get fresh product into the shops

The nation rejoiced, however, as Cliff, just in time, took the #1 spot, kicking Vanilla Ice’s sorry ass in the process and bringing his four-week reign at the top to an end.  The question that needs to be asked is whether it was a fix, in that Cliff only stayed one week at #1 before dropping down to #3, whereas the Iceman was at #2 for this chart and the next, which contained a few surprises as the kids raced out to the shops and spent their record tokens on all sorts of singles that were brand new in the shops……

30 December

mp3: Deborah Harry and Iggy Pop – Did You Evah? (#70)

The second single lifted from the Red Hot + Blue compilation album aimed at raising funds to fight AIDS.  It would eventually peak at #42.

mp3: Prefab Sprout – Carnival 2000 (#57)

This was one of four tracks to be found on the Jordan EP, which was following on from two earlier singles lifted from Jordan : The Comeback, an album that had been released in September 1990 to near universal acclaim.  The EP would reach #35

Other new entries this week were Robert Palmer, Motorhead, The Stranglers, and Bananarama, all of whose releases came in outside the Top 40.

The hard rock brigade featured well this week, with Anthrax from New York City scoring at #23, with a cover of a Joe Jackson song

mp3: Anthrax – Got The Time

Seven months later, they would team up with Chuck D and take a cover of Bring The Noise into the top 20.

The year ended, however, with a very rare beast, namely a #1 for a hard rock band. One of the UK’s home grown acts who had previously seen a number of 45s go Top Ten in the late 80s, but this was this the first, and as it proved, last, time they hit #1 – and it was achieved with a brand-new entry.

By my reckoning, this was just the 22nd time a song had entered the singles chart at #1, going back to 1952.

Between 1991 and 1999, that particulat accomplishment would be achieved 122 times; indeed of the 35 songs which reached #1 in 1999, fully 33 of them would enter at #1, of which 20 would fall off the top spot after just one week.  Changed days indeed…..

JC

 

Billy Bragg

RIPPING BADGERS CDs (Part 2): BILLY BRAGG

Ripping Badgers CDs
The nearly finished A to Z Charity Shop CD Challenge #2

Workers Playtime (1988, Go! Discs)
Bought from Oxfam, Teignmouth for 99p

JC writes…

Quite clearly, I wasn’t in Teignmouth when Badger and SWC found themselves in the Oxfam Book and Music Shop when this, along with albums by Apollo 440, Cornershop and Dinosaur Jr were purchased. But that small matter didn’t stop me from offering to write up today’s piece.

Workers Playtime was, at the time of its release, something of a shock to the system for those of us who had followed the fortunes of Stephen William Bragg over the previous few years.  I’d be lying if I said anything other than it was his political songs that had got me on board, and it was these, along with the hugely entertaining and often highly educational monologues in-between the songs that made him such a great live experience. Yes, the love songs were lovely to listen to, especially for the fact that they were far removed from being soppy, often tinged with a sense of self-deprecation and humour, or, in the case of Levi Stubbs’ Tears, (the stand-out track on 1986’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry), written from a perspective that was thought-provoking and ultimately, incredibly moving.

Come 1988, and Billy Bragg was, to all intent and purposes, a pop star, thanks to his take on She’s Leaving Home spending time at #1 in the UK singles charts.  OK, so it did piggyback on being the double-A side of With A Little Help From My Friends by Wet Wet Wet, with both taken from the compilation re-recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band pulled together by the NME in aid of the charity Childline.  The fact remains that while the single was at #1, with maybe 95-99% of the airplay and subsequent sales being due to the Scottish pop/soul combo, it still led to Billy Bragg appearing in the Top of The Pops studio where accompanied by Cara Tivey on piano, he was lauded as being responsible for the best-selling single of the week.

A few months later and Workers Playtime hit the shops.  It came at a time when I was newly married, and although I realised from fairly early on that it wasn’t likely to last, I was in a mindset of being happy and joyous about how life was treating me at the age of 25 – a decent job with a career to build on, a nice house in an attractive small town just outside of Edinburgh, and I’d also reconnected again with a mate from my university days after a few years apart after he left early to try and make it as a footballer while I finished my degree.  I didn’t completely warm to an album filled with slow-paced and anguished songs, albeit the rabble-rousing and joyous track which closed proceedings certainly had something going for it.

I remember at the time Billy saying that he wanted his new record to go in a different direction, partly as a response to the disappointing way that British politics had not moved away from years of Tory rule, but also as he wanted to build on some of the best experiences from Taxman and deliver an album which he would record mostly with a band.  It was only after really enjoying the songs on 1991’s Don’t Try This At Home did I really revisit Workers Playtime, by when my marriage was over and I was in a much different place having been on a real emotional rollercoaster for a long time.  Its songs connected with me so much better.

Many years later, and the Andrew Collins biography of Billy Bragg told the wider and largely unknown story of many of the songs on Workers Playtime, namely that the songs had come from personal and bitter experiences, something that the very private Billy Bragg hadn’t gone into when the album was released. It’s an album written by someone who had fallen deeply in love only for it all to end very badly and for reasons he hasn’t been able to fathom, and in ways he never saw coming.

mp3: Billy Bragg – Must I Paint You A Picture

Thirty years on and the great man, having later found love, happiness and contentment can now make reference to the era when he plays the songs from the album in the live setting. He stands on the stage as if to say to his audience that he knows the answer to the time-old question, ‘What Becomes of The Broken-Hearted?’

I would imagine that, as the years have passed, many people have thanked Billy Bragg for these songs, as they surely have resonated with all of us at some point in our lives.

There’s something inside that hurts my foolish pride
To visit the places we use to go together
Not a day goes by that I don’t sit and wonder why
Your feelings for me didn’t last forever

If these had been written for a Motown artist in the 60s, they’d be held up as amongst the greatest of all time:-

mp3: Billy Bragg – The Price I Pay

He writes elsewhere of falling in love with a little time bomb; of hating the arsehole he becomes when he’s with her; of thinking that fate has been against them from the very start.

The thing is, Billy Bragg a few years earlier wrote Love Gets Dangerous, one of the tracks on his 1983 debut Life’s A Riot…., in which he accepted that falling head over heels is very very scary, and it was the penultimate and very autobiographical song on Worker’s Playtime which proved that very point, especially when things fail so miserably:-

mp3: Billy Bragg – The Short Answer

In among all this, Billy still found time to do the politics – with Tender Comrade, an acapella song about the life and times of a post-conflict soldier, and Rotting On Remand in which he questions the morality of aspects of the justice system.  He also returns to the subject of domestic abuse, with the haunting and majestic Valentine’s Day Is Over.

But the best is left till the end, and I’ll simply repeat the words I used in September 2015 when I pulled together a Billy Bragg ICA.

‘If I was ever asked if there was one song in the world that I wished I had ever written, it would be this.

And here’s a wee confession….without fail it activates my tear ducts despite the fact that it’s not a sad song whatsoever. But it’s a song that makes me think about death for the simple fact is that I want it to be played at my funeral as the mourners depart the service…and I want them all to laugh out loud at the point Billy shouts ‘beam me up Scotty.” You’ll all be welcome to attend.

The best closing song to any album….ever.’

mp3: Billy Bragg – Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Looking back, it is clear that while there had been evidence on the previous albums, it took until Workers Playtime to really confirm to any doubters that Billy Bragg was way much more than a big-nosed, big-mouthed lefty whose was best at lecturing us with shouty songs about making the world a better and safer place.  This is is when the personal songs began to heavily outweigh the political, both in quantity and in quality, laying the foundation for the remainder of his outstanding career as a musician and entertainer.

Which is why, if asked, I’ll now name Workers Playtime as my favourite Bragg album of them all.

JC

Apollo 440

RIPPING BADGERS CDs (Part 1): APOLLO 440

Ripping Badgers CDs
The nearly finished A to Z Charity Shop CD Challenge #1

Electro Glide in Blue – Apollo 440 (1997, Stealth Sonic Recordings)
Bought from Oxfam, Teignmouth for 99p

There was of course a box of CDs that came with the records given to me by Mrs Badger. The CDs were nearly all purchased from charity shops in Devon. I was there when Badger bought this particular CD, it cost him 99p and he got it from the excellent Oxfam Book and Music shop in Teignmouth.

“You should get that…” I tell Badger, spying the CD in his hand. “For 99p, that is a bonafide bargain”. He looks at me doubtfully. “Of course,” I tell him “you could borrow my copy and burn it but think of all the good your 99p could do to help communities in Chad devastated by another dry summer and potato blight”.

Badger sighs and adds it to the other two CDs that he holds in his mitts. He pauses, checks his wallet, sighs again and wanders over to the rack and picks up the copy of ‘Green Mind’ by Dinosaur Jr that he had put down a few minutes ago. He turns to me and says “When was the last time you ate a potato that had come from Chad…?”

He reaches over to the Fairtrade chocolate and adds two bars of the ‘Mandarin Dark’ to the pile.

“You buy your potatoes from a vastly overpriced Organic Farm in Totnes, that are personally licked by a passing tramp for organic authenticity”. He smiles at the old lady behind the counter and hands over a crisp, newly printed tenner. We walk outside, Badger cradling his new bag of swag, me empty-handed, it had started to rain so we decide to take refuge in the handily placed ‘Award Winning Coffee Shop’ directly opposite.

As we sit at the table, supping our drinks (me tea, Badger, a turmeric latte) Badger inspects his wares. He has four CDs – They are ‘Electro Glide in Blue’ by Apollo 440, ‘Workers Playtime’ by Billy Bragg, ‘Handcream for a Generation’ by Cornershop and as mentioned already ‘Green Mind’ by Dinosaur Jr.

He looks at them and smiles “Well look at that” he says. “The CDs I have bought are alphabetical, A,B,C and D…I wonder if we could go all the way through the alphabet buying CDs from charity shops…”

And that folks is how Badger and I started and sadly never finished, our last ‘stupid boys challenge’, for The Sound of Being OK blog. We had a little spreadsheet and as and when we bought a CD we would fill in the details on it. It looks like we found CDs from 20 of the 26 letters of the alphabet (missing H, I, Q, U, X, Z). Badger bought at least ten of these – so the CD series will feature those ten in alphabetical order.

All of which misty-eyed reminiscing brings us to the first CD in the pile.

‘Electro Glide In Blue’ by Apollo 440 was considered by some to be an unlucky record (and you can perhaps see why). It was recorded in the mid-nineties and features guest contributions from Charles Bukowski and Billy Mackenzie from The Associates and also a tribute to jazz drumming superstar Gene Krupa.

All three had sadly died by the time the album was released.

mp3: Krupa
mp3: Tears of the Gods (Featuring Charles Bukowksi)
mp3: Pain in any Language (featuring Billy Mackenzie)

If you ask me, these three tracks are the best three moments on a fantastic (if quite lengthy) album. ‘Krupa’, for instance, is a wonderful piece of music. It’s all about the drumming which bounces along cheerily like a four-year-old on a trampoline after three back-to-back Sherbet fountains. It also has this decent little synth holding it together which takes it to that sublime level. But it’s not just about synths and bouncy beats, ‘Electro Glide…’ blends various types of music, rock, techno, soft porn soundtracks. It is if you like a musical kettle of fish.

‘Tears of the Gods’ is the track that features American – German poet Charles Bukowksi and perhaps underlines what I mean about it being a musical kettle of fish. This one contains a lot of guitars and when you add them to Bukowski’s frankly brilliant vocals it is sublime and way more sultry than most of the soundalike indie bands that were around at the time that this was recorded.

Which brings us on to dear old Billy Mackenzie and ‘Pain In Any Language’ which I think is the finest moment on the entire album. A nearly nine-minute electronic opus that blends Asian sounding chimes and soft subtle beats. But it’s the vocal that really make this track. I don’t know if it’s because of all the sadness around Billy’s death or the fact that writing this has made me reflective but my oh my, Billy Mackenzie could sing. I mean his voice on this is just incredible and very nearly reduced me to tears.

‘Electro Glide in Blue’ also contains two more tracks of note, the first you will all recognise and that is the Van Halen sampling, apostrophe utilising monster that is ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub’. Which is obviously brilliant.

mp3: Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub

It also contains an enormous mock classical piece right at the end, called ‘Stealth Mass in F#M’. Which brings us back to the ‘unlucky record’ – because fact fans, this track, you might be interested to know was I think, playing on BBC Radio 1 when the news of the death of Princess Diana flooded in.

mp3: Stealth Mass in F#M

SWC

Fall

THE ART OF THE COMPANY PRESS RELEASE

For more years than I care to remember, I was involved in churning out press and media releases, mostly back in the day when these things carried some importance as the era of the 24-hour news cycle and the need for instant information was still some while off.  The main target was the printed press, with a favourable outcome being a good spread not too far from the first few pages of news, preferably with your pre-supplied photo also included.

There’s all sorts of advice out there on how to best go about writing a good press release, but in essence, it boils down to these key components:-

1. Have an attention-grabbing headline and the most relevant details in the opening paragraph
2. Stick to the facts, avoiding adjectives at all costs
3. Do not hype anything up
4. Have easy-to-follow key sentences that won’t be sub-edited
5. Provide strong and easily attributable quotes, from someone in any accompanying photo.

I did OK in that I was able to get by for more than 25 years, but looking at this example from a 1985 release for a new single by The Fall, I don’t think I’d have lasted 25 minutes in the field of music PR:-

Subject: Oh! Brother press release, June 1984

12″ THE FALL – ‘Oh! Brother’ / ‘O! Brother’ ‘God Box’

THE SINISTER TONES OF PRE-FIX LOOPS

The nucleus of ‘Oh! Brother’ was composed a decade ago, a version performed by The Fall to a Diddley beat in the late ’70s, rewritten twelve times at least. Only now has Mark E. Smith seen fit to record and release it in its now-relevant form.

As the cover details were being finalised on the morning of May 4th, Barbara Castle MP drove past the Fall home in Manchester declaring through a megaphone: ‘Vote for FOGG! Vote Fogg! I’m Barbara….’ This is oddly relevant to the text of ‘Oh! Brother’.

Translation of the pidgin-German on track reads: ‘I hate the crowd / The impotent crowd / The pliable crowd / Who tomorrow will rip my heart out.’

‘God Box’ a.k.a. GAWD-Box or Gold-Box concerns the effect of Christian TV on sleep patterns, and sympathetically monitors the story of a recipient i.e. M.E.S.

SPLINTER. Sleeeep. Singing. Draaag.

Also, dear pop-rats, ‘God Box’ heralds the debut of Brix Smith as guitarist and arranger full time. Plus two drummers, steel ashtrays, mod bass and on 12″ version Armed Forces TV waves.

The Fall treat 45’s as form experiments, being of the opinion that singles have an inimitable power of conveying topicality sound distortion and brain-stretch.

THEREFORE, ‘Oh! Brother’ / ‘God Box’ is firmly in the tradition of ‘How I Wrote Elastic Man’ (‘Rubbish’ – Jeff Beck) ‘Fiery Jack’ (‘Doowop?’ – A. Thrills) ‘Lie Dream of a Casino Soul’ ‘The Man Whose Head Expanded’ (MERE competition words wise ‘socialogical’ ‘VOICE?’ etc. – Chris Bonn) and ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ (‘they took a wrong turn somewhere’).

‘Blank verse, n. – the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind’ Ambrose Bierce

Oh Brother /God Box by THE FALL  –  THE REAL MONTY!

I have no idea how the folk on the newsdesks at NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and Record Mirror coped with this sort of stuff landing on their desks each week.  It does, however, kind of help to make sense why so many of the singles reviews were impenetrable to the average reader.

mp3: The Fall – Oh! Brother
mp3: The Fall – Oh! Brother (12″ mix)
mp3: The Fall – God-Box

This was The Fall’s thirteenth single/EP going back to 1978. It was their first for Beggars Banquet which meant it was disqualified for inclusion in the Indie Chart where many of the previous efforts had reached the Top 10.  It did, however, creep into the very lower echelons of the proper chart, reaching #93 and thus becoming the first Fall single to get into the Top 100 selling 45s of a particular week.  There were some who said/argued this was evidence of them selling out, and many of those making the arguments put the blame on Brix…..

JC

 

New Order, Other Two, Stephen Morris

BONUS POST : HEAR THE DRUMMER GET WICKED

I’ve previously mentioned that I have a great number of music biographies in various nooks and crannies around Villain Towers, none of which I show any inclination to give away, although I will lend things out to various friends. I’ve just again added to the existing 20 or so books related to Factory Records/Joy Division/New Order/The Hacienda, with Fast Foward, the second volume of autobiography by Stephen Morris, who I must stop describing  simply as ‘the drummer.’

His first volume, Record Play Pause was a hugely enjoyable effort but it was kind of overshadowed by the fact that I read it at the same time as This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division – The Oral History , by Jon Savage, which very much has a place near the top of the best music bios.  Knowing, however, that volume two was on its way to me, having ordered an advance signed copy from Rough Trade, I gave volume one another read and found it every bit as enjoyable and entertaining as first time around, this setting me up perfectly to pick up where Stephen had left off, which was the death of Ian Curtis.

Fast Forward, therefore, is essentially the tale of New Order from 1980 to 2020, spread over 450 pages.  It is a well-known tale, one which as all music fans of a certain age knows, involves a lot of deaths, not least Martin Hannett, Rob Gretton, Anthony H Wilson and Factory Records.  The author does his very best to not go over the stories and incidents that have dominated previous books, but is still something of a shock that Wilson’s passing is covered in just one sentence, although there are very understandable reasons as to why given it occurred at a time when there were very difficult and challenging events taking place in Morris’s life and circumstances.  But the fact that something so significant in the wider story of Factory/New Order kind of passes by almost in the blink of an eye is the perfect illustration as to why Fast Forward is an essential read to anyone who is interested in trying to get a proper handle on why things have gone certain ways since New Order emerged blinking and bewildered on the back of what was, at the time, the suicide of a relatively little-known singer of a cult indie band on a cult indie label.

Stephen Morris, on the basis of these two volumes of autobiography, is a very self-deprecating person.  He knows he’s the quiet, almost unrecognisable bloke in the band, a situation brought home to him on countless occasions when he’s stopped from gaining access to gigs and events that he is very much central to.  He knows he’s regarded as the least interesting of the band, having little to say or do that makes headlines when talking to journalists, and the book plays on his perception as a geek by devoting countless paragraphs to descriptions of the equipment and technology advances New Order were investing in throughout the 80s in efforts to stay at the cutting edge of the way music was now being played and produced – spoiler alert, he ends up being less and less of a drummer and increasingly a programmer.

There’s a case to be made, however, that he was the most important member of the band.  He was the one who took the brave decision to go with the suggestion from Rob Gretton that his girlfriend, Gillian Gilbert, should become the fourth member of New Order given that he knew he would be exposing her to a world of sexism and misogyny, thus putting his own personal happiness at risk.  It’s no real secret that Peter Hook in particular never took to the idea of having a woman in the band, a position he never seems ever to have been at ease with, but it was surprising and disappointing to read how Bernard Sumner reacted to some suggestions about increasing Gillian’s responsibilities as time went on. But, in giving space to all of this, Stephen Morris doesn’t shy away from highlighting the occasions when he let his girlfriend down, and one particularly spectacular incident in Bangkok is revealed in all its gruesome detail, which leaves the reader in no doubt that the author could be a bit of a dick.

I have to say that for the first two-thirds of Fast Forward, I was of the view that it was an inferior read in comparison to Record Play Pause.  I think this was down to the fact that it was racing through at breakneck speed, with just a few pages devoted to each album or tour, but it was satisfying to read that Morris’ views and opinions on the releases more or less chimed with my own thoughts, and to have confirmation of my long held view that cocaine played such a big part in the way that Shellshock was given the kitchen sink approach as it evolved and developed, with nobody prepared to take anything out of the near ten minutes that the 12″ version ended up being.  Oh, and while I’ve somehow always thought the band spent about six months in Ibiza with the recording of Technique, it was only two months, albeit there was a lot of partying and relaxing rather than music playing – it turns out most of the sounds were put down in the Real World Studio complex, just outside of Bath in south-west England.

My mind, however, changed as the author began to switch increasingly away from the New Order story and to focus more on his own circumstances, including how The Other Two became an important part of his and Gillian’s story in the 90s.  He also returns to his relationship with his father, something that had been central to much of volume one, particularly at its beginning before Joy Division became the be-all and end-all for the author, and to see it come back so sharply into focus near the end of volume two, when New Order was becoming increasingly less important for the author was something of a surprise, albeit it becomes yet another instance when he has to deal with death and the issues it leaves him facing.

The sleeve jacket does offer a very decent summary of this book:-

Blending entertaining anecdote with profound reflection, Fast Forward strips back a lifetime of fame and fortune to tell, with raw honesty, how New Order threatened to implode time after time. And yet, despite everything, the legacy of their music continued to hold them together.

By the end of the 450 pages (which were read over the course of just two days), I wanted more, albeit the story seems to have come to its natural conclusion.  Stephen Morris does acknowledge that much more could have been written, and in particular, the role that Gillian played both as a band member and as the rock to which he clung when he was in danger of being washed away.  He also acknowledges that with the band still on the go, very much against expectations both internally and externally, the story is not complete, and he hints that a whole other book may well emerge at some point.  It certainly won’t be in the immediate future – at the age of 63, Stephen Morris, is having to slow down and 2021 is a year in which New Order will be taking to the road and so there’ll be no time to sit down and write up another volume of memoirs.  Perhaps it won’t be written until such a time as the music has finally come to a stop and he can look back at things, perhaps when he can really think and reflect more on the legacy rather than telling a series of chronological tales.  On the basis of the pages of Fast Forward, it’ll be worth the wait.

mp3: The Other Two – The Greatest Thing
mp3: The Other Two – Loved It (The Other Track)
mp3: New Order – Shellshock (12″ version)
mp3: New Order – The Perfect Kiss (12″ version)

The last is included as one in which there is nothing in the way of Stephen Morris playing the drums but his programming, including the musical frogs, is really what makes the tune.

JC

Various

GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT: OUR SWEDISH CORRESPONDENT

AN AFFECTIONATE BUNCH – AN ICA OF ALBUM OPENERS

from OUR SWEDISH CORRESPONDENT

This was a challenge I couldn’t resist, difficult, very difficult and I guess there will always be choices made that all of us taking the challenge have done, that we have sleepless nights over… It will be interesting to see over the coming Mondays how many tracks will feature more than once. We know the readers of TVV have a broad span in musical taste, but there is also a lot of common ground. Given that likely several ICA’s will arrive your inbox in a short time, without the knowledge of what has already been featured the chance (risk) that duplicates will happen isn’t neglectable.

Cutting down to 10 tracks was a battle, even harder to get some kind of flow, an album feel. I really wanted to have Perfect Skin on here, I tried and tried – it’s a cracking album opener that I just couldn’t fit the right place for.

An Affectionate Bunch – An ICA of album openers.

Side A

A1. The Stone Roses – Breaking Into Heaven – An intro I think I remember reading took several months and producers to finalize, it builds slowly into a psychedelic guitar-laden pop gem. One of my favourite Stone Roses tracks of all, and an album opener well in line with I Wanna Be Adored.

A2. The Gossip – Dimestore Diamond – From the fantastic 2008 album Music For Boys we keep up the energy. Catchy as can get, the drumbeat carries the track nicely decorated with just a little glittering guitar here and there.

A3. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Just Like Honey. Time to slow down a bit without losing the fire, I love this song and it felt given in this position from the very start of this ICA. Sofia Coppola has repeatedly shown to create spotless scores for her films, Lost In Translation no exception. I shamelessly admit it was the film that made me pick up the album by J&MC, I had neglected them earlier. My bad!

A4. The Bathers – Perpetual Adoration – From the magnificent debut album by Chris Thompson under The Bathers moniker. Quirky pop in the same kind of vein as Roddy Frame could deliver.

A5. Allez Allez – Valley Of The Kings. They started out as Marine, was picked up by Les Disques Du Crépuscule and released the Life In Reverse-single which created some international stir. This led to a John Peel session in London where the singer (Marc Marine) left, the rest of the band connected with a new singer and formed Allez Allez. Moderate success with this single, which to me is the old stories of the Numenor kings from Silmarillion condensed into one single track. They recorded and released the new wave, funk-filled album Promises produced by Martyn Ware, while this a slow-paced magnificent piece even if I always found it a bit odd choice to open the album with. The faith of the only song close to a hit I guess. Here it makes a grand ending to this first side.

Side B

B1. The Associates – The Affectionate Punch. Words superfluous, it can’t be much better than this.

B2. Of Monsters And Men – Dirty Paws. The opener to their 2011 debut album My Head Is An Animal. Catchy, with the la la la part in exactly the right place. If The Associates got us up to speed, this is great sing-a-long – don’t be fooled by the careful intro.

B3. All That Jazz – Cruel Summer. Swedish indie-band from small-town Karlstad, made their debut on Wire with the cracking 12″ Banner Of Love, and then an eponymous full-length album and this the opener from the latter. Had to include at least one Swedish track, didn’t I? Still think it merits its inclusion on its own, more of that sing-friendly big-time indie coming your way.

B4. Billy MacKenzie – Wild Is The Wind. From the Transmission Impossible album – and before any protests are raised, I know Discogs labels it a compilation album to which I must to some degree object. When Nude Records posthumously released the Beyond The Sun album they gave the tapes to Robin Guthrie to finish off the almost completed recordings, but Billy’s family were never really happy with the result. Later when One Little Indian re-released the songs the original recordings were instead used, together with a handful of other songs not included on the BTS record. Since Transmission Impossible has the original, previously unreleased, versions I qualify it as an album in its own right. This breathtaking version of this classic is a beautiful break before we close this album.

A5. The Cure – Out Of This World, from Bloodflowers. When Billy prays to be loved, Robert Smith is past the praying and has realized it’s over, it’s time to get back to real life, even if real life is the reason they were there in the first place. A monumental closer. Bloodflowers was for me a return to form for The Cure after the rather patchy Wild Mood Swings, unfortunately it was a temporary return to form and since I have not paid much attention. If the promised very dark new album will ever see the light (sic) of day I’ll give it a listen, but expectations are low.

Thanks for listening.

Martin

And, again, here are both sides of the ICA as stand-alone listens.

An Affectionate Bunch: Side A (26:24)
An Affectionate Bunch: Side B (21:39)

PS: Keep your eyes peeled for a bonus posting later on today…..

JC

R.E.M.

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF R.E.M. (Part 25)

Bang And Blame was the first song that really jumped out at me on ‘Monster’. It’s no surprise it was a single considering the album doesn’t have any of those horrid novelty songs I’ve bemoaned throughout this series. It has the quietLOUDquiet dynamic like every American alternative rock song of the period, which of course made it very MTV-friendly, but being R.E.M. it was somewhat restrained.

The song’s subject matter is debated. Some say it was written by Stipe as a lament to his relationship with actor River Phoenix who died the year before. Others have said it’s about domestic violence, with Stipe’s character trying to stand up for himself while being aware of his passivity and likelihood of being abused once more. One of the best summations I’ve come across is by a fan who wrote:

“…simmering rage and disgust mixed with two-faced empathy and sly manipulation laced with guilt. Sonically, it all explodes and then calms down panting with sexual grief. Then a teaser at the end, like a feather against your skin.”

I’ve no idea if any of these are right, or even close, but it is worth noting that River Phoenix’s sister Rain is one of the voices singing backing vocals in the chorus (along with Stipe’s own sister Lynda), so maybe that’s a hint? Whatever, as far as the music goes, the delay effect on the guitars give the song its identity, and there are some interesting layers among the overall recording. The aforementioned backing vocals, for instance. Short, sharp bursts of “bang” and, wait for it… “blame” don’t so much echo Stipe’s repeating of the words, to me they are scornful, taunting, a disparaging retort to the protagonist’s accusation. “Bang? Waddya mean ‘bang’? I don’t ‘bang’!” The sort of thing an arrogant abuser might use as a flimsy defence. I might have got completely the wrong end of the stick, mind. “And if I blame you it’s because it’s your own fault!”

Bang And Blame was one of the band’s most successful singles globally, making the top 40 in many countries, even becoming their only number one in Canada. In the UK it reached number 15. In spite of its chart success, it was not included on either of the band’s compilation albums ‘In Time’ or ‘Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage’. In fact, each only contain a solitary track from ‘Monster’ – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? – which remains a tragedy. It was also a favourite during the Monster Tour in 1995, being played at nearly every show, but was never played again thereafter.

Anyway, in the UK, it was released in just three formats. All contained an ‘edit’ of the a-side, although in reality, it was actually the album version shorn of the short instrumental interlude tacked onto the end. The 7” and cassette contained the instrumental version (or the K Version as it was billed).

mp3: R.E.M. – Bang and Blame (edit)
mp3: R.E.M. – Bang and Blame (K version)

The CD had the next three tracks from the Greenpeace benefit show as mentioned last week. The first one is, well, it is what it is – the third live version of Losing My Religion to feature as a b-side. It wouldn’t be the last. Country Feedback is my favourite R.E.M. song and I’ve yet to hear a poor version of it. And Begin The Begin has some nice guitar sounds in it, maybe thanks to guest member John Keane, a long-time friend of the band and studio engineer. He played the pedal-steel on Country Feedback.

mp3: R.E.M. – Losing My Religion (live, Greenpeace)
mp3: R.E.M. – Country Feedback (live, Greenpeace)
mp3: R.E.M. – Begin the Begin (live, Greenpeace)

Last week we mentioned that we’d be including the 2019 remixes of the singles. The new mix of Bang And Blame isn’t radically different to the original (bar the backing vocals gaining way more prominence) until about halfway, after the bridge. Here, Scott Litt has made the bass and percussion the focus of attention, Bill Berry’s bongos especially. In the latter half of the song, the keyboard sound that flutters away almost unheard in the original is turned up. The overall mix is just that little bit brighter, I think. It is a little shorter too, even with the added interlude. I like it. Better than the original? Hmm, the jury is out…

mp3: R.E.M. – Bang and Blame (remix)

The Robster

Pearlfishers

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #241: THE PEARLFISHERS

I have mentioned, in passing, David Scott of The Pearlfishers during a small number of previous postings, with the most recent being just a few weeks back as part of the look at Paul Haig in this long-running feature. It’s time to shine the spotlight on Mr. Scott and again, I’ll lean on all music for the very detailed bio:-

An ever-shifting Scottish group led by singer/songwriter David Scott, the only constant member, the Pearlfishers are a glorious soft pop band mixing acoustic-based music with subtle orchestral flourishes, rather like a Glasgow-based Prefab Sprout with a major Brian Wilson fixation. Since forming in 1989 the Pearlfishers have refined and broadened their sound while maintaining a steadily growing cult following.

Scott began writing songs while a teenager in Glasgow in the early ’80s. In the summer of 1984, Scott played his earliest bedroom efforts to local musician Bobby Henry, who offered to put a pair of them on The Shift Compilation, an anthology of Glasgow bands released on Henry’s own Shift Records. Released under the band name Chewy Raccoon, a joke name that stuck, the songs attracted enough attention that Scott and the band were signed to Shift’s distributor, Phonogram, which released the group’s sole single, “Don’t Touch Me,” in August 1985. The single flopped, Scott was dropped by Phonogram, and the Chewy Raccoon name was, thankfully, retired.

The following year, Scott hooked up with Australian-born drummer Jim Gash, keyboardist Robert McGinlay, bassist Chris Keenan, and backing vocalist Jeanette Burns to form the immediate precursors to the Pearlfishers, Hearts and Minds. Signed to CBS Records, the group released one single, the folksy “Turning Turtle,” produced by Eric Stewart of 10cc, in September 1987. After that single followed the Chewy Raccoon disc to oblivion, internal dissension split the group, who left CBS in early 1988, permanently souring Scott on the major-label experience.

Scott and Gash quickly formed a new group, featuring Brian McAlpine on keyboards and Yugoslavian bassist Mil Stricevic. When an American group called Hearts and Minds signed with A&M Records, Scott and company changed their name to the Pearlfishers, after the Bizet opera. Twice burned by his previous experiences with record labels, Scott formed his own imprint, My Dark Star, which released the Pearlfishers’ debut single, “Sacred,” in late 1990. Sessions for an album tentatively titled The Flo’ers o’ the Forest followed, but they were abandoned in the summer of 1991. An EP, Hurt, was fashioned from songs recorded in the abortive album sessions and released in November of that year, quickly followed in early 1992 by a cassette-only release of strictly acoustic songs called Woodenwire, which featured a musical setting of a Robert Burns poem and a pair of traditional Scottish folk songs.

Recorded in nearly a year’s worth of off-and-on sessions, the Pearlfishers’ debut album, Za Za’s Garden (named after one of Scott’s earliest pre-Chewy Raccoon songs), was released in August 1993. Produced by Scott and McAlpine, the album largely abandoned the rustic and folky elements of the Pearlfishers’ early releases in favor of a newfound emphasis on crystalline arrangements and Beach Boys-inspired harmonies, anchored by McAlpine’s delicate keyboards.

The first of several lineup changes took place after the release of Za Za’s Garden. In fact, for the next several records, the Pearlfishers were simply Scott and McAlpine with a revolving door of rhythm sections, plus guests on various string and reed instruments. During an extended break between the first and second albums, Scott partnered with Duglas T. Stewart of the BMX Bandits to create and tour with two revues based on the music of Scott’s two primary influences, Brian Wilson and French jazz-rock idol Serge Gainsbourg.

Signing with the German label Marina Records, Scott and McAlpine released possibly their finest album, 1997’s The Strange Underworld of the Tall Poppies, an album that is to Pet Sounds what Za Za’s Garden had been to The Beach Boys Today! Two stop-gap EPs followed, 1997’s Even on a Sunday Afternoon and 1998’s Banana Sandwich, while Scott and McAlpine labored over 1999’s The Young Picnickers, another album of moody, semi-orchestral pop, this time featuring a collaboration with Stewart. Scott and Stewart collaborated two more times in 2000: on-stage with a tribute concert to the legendary Italian soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone and on records with the Marina tribute album Caroline Now!: The Songs of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, executive produced by the pair.

2001’s Across the Milky Way introduced a new era in the Pearlfishers’ career. McAlpine was gone, leaving Scott to handle keyboards along with his usual guitar and bass duties. The album is perhaps slightly less grand than its two predecessors, with a more intimate, live feel. Original Pearlfishers drummer Jim Gash returned, and bassist Lindsay L. Cooper (of avant-garde jazz trio Day & Taxi) is among the dozen guest musicians. The Strange Underworld of the Tall Poppies was re-released the following year.

The bio takes us up to 2002.  A  look at the discography and other places on the official website reveals the following info:-

2002: Dumb, Dumb, Dumb – contribution to ‘Is This Music?’, a Teenage Fanclub Tribute (Painted Sky Discs)
2003: Sky Meadows – album (Marina Records)
2004: A Sunflower at Christmas – album (Marina Records)
2005: Re-release of The Young Picnickers (1999)
2007: Up With The Larks – album (Marina Records)
2007: The Umbrellas of Shibuya – 7″ single (Marina Records)
2008: iTunes Essentials – download compilation
2009: Digital re-release of A Sunflower at Christmas, with five additional songs
2010: The Land of Counterpane – contribution to ‘From a Garden of Songs – Songs from the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson'(Modestine Records)
2011: Swan Dreams – contribution to ‘Love Letter to Japan’, a download compilation on Bandcamp
2014: Open Up Your Colouring Book – album (Marina Records)
2015: Record Store Day vinyl release of The Strange Underworld of the Tall Poppies (Marina Records)
2019: Love & Other Hopeless Things – album (Marina Records)

Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning that David Scott is an academic, as the Head of Division in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland.

The Pearlfishers are one of those bands who have a real hardcore base, hoovering up all the releases and heading along on the few occasions when David play live, either in a solo capacity or with a band. He’s worked with just about anyone who is anyone in the Scottish music scene, and nobody has a bad word to say about him. I’ve only a handful of tracks, all from various compilations released by Marina Records over the years.

mp3: The Pearlfishers – Everybody Knows It’s A Dream

Released in 2004 and found on Ave Marina – Ten Years of Marina Records

JC

Microdisney

SOME MORE WORDS ON MICRODISNEY

I was delighted with the positive response to the recent posting featuring Birthday Girl by Microdisney and so I thought it would be worth having an early(ish) return to them.

One of the comments left behind last time, was from Colin Milligan:-

“I saw Microdisney way-back-when at the Venue in Edinburgh. Great gig. Some good singles: Singer’s Hampstead Home, Loftholdingswood, and Gale Force Wind, as well as Birthday Girl. I suppose they all sound a bit ‘of their time’ now. Thanks for the reminder.”

I first came across Microdisney thanks to an appearance on Whistle Test, on a show that was broadcast partly live from the ICA in London in March 1985 and for which I had intended to tune in to catch sight of a new band from Manchester that I had heard so much about

It was a show that I had arranged for my flatmates to be tape in its entirety on a VHS tape as I couldn’t watch it when it went out. I had fully intended to just fast forward to the James piece, but the show opened with a very fine number from a band that I only knew by name and the fact they had previously released a fantastically named mini-album, at a time when anti-apartheid protests were many, called We Hate You South African Bastards:-

mp3: Microdisney – Loftholdingswood

I was really surprised that Loftholdingswood was such a tuneful pop number – in my head, I imagined they would be loud, shouty and angry men. Looking back, I am incredulous that I missed out on them but it was a period in which so much great pop music was being released, particularly from Glasgow and Scottish-based bands, that it was impossible to stay fully on top of things.

Loftholdingswood is still a very fine song – there’s more than a hint of the sort of great pop music that Paddy McAloon and Prefab Sprout were producing at this point in time. And given that nobody ever accuses them as ‘being of its time’, I’d argue that this is no different…..and if you’re reading this Colin, I would hope you’d agree.

The song appeared on a three-track EP called In The World. I’m happy to say that I recently picked up a second-hand copy in reasonably decent shape and here’s the other two tracks.

mp3: Microdisney – Teddy Dogs
mp3: Microdisney – 464

One thing is, from listening to the opening section of 464, you’d never mix up Paddy McAloon and Cathal Coughlan‘s styles of singing….and there’s a hint of the venom and anger that would come to the fore in Fatima Mansions and songs like Blues for Ceausescu.

JC

 

Pavement

AND WITH THIS, THEY BADE US FAREWELL…

In as much as it would be the last release from the band before they broke-up after ten years, albeit the official break-up didn’t happen until some time later.

Pavement never quite hit the heights that many in the music press had predicted, especially back home in the USA where they never made any impact on the charts. It was a slightly different story in the UK, with a couple of Top 40 singles towards the end of their time, while four of their five studio albums all cracked the Top 30 – debut Slanted and Enchanted was the exception, although it has proved to be a consistent seller since its 1992 release, shifting more than 200,000 copies all told.

The band was not in a happy place during the recording of the fifth album, Terror Twilight, and the tensions continued during the six-month promotional tour. It turned out that their final gig was at the Brixton Academy in London in November 1999, by which point co-frontman Stephen Malkmus was barely speaking to the other members. His behaviour at this final gig included attaching a pair of handcuffs attached to his microphone stand an telling the audience that they “… symbolize what it’s like being in a band all these years.” Six months later, amidst all sorts of rumours circulating on the internet, the band’s website was changed to announce they were no more – quite incredibly, at least two of the members only found out this way having not been contacted beforehand by any management or label representatives. It was very very messy.

Thankfully, everyone was able to kiss and make up, with a reunion and shows in America in 2010. It was also planned for everyone to get together in 2020, specifically to perform two 30th anniversary shows at the 2020 Primavera Sound festivals in Barcelona and Porto, but these, like so many other things, were cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At this stage, Pavement is due to play as part of Primavera Sound’s June 2021 lineup…..

But back to that final EP, one which came with seven tracks and clocked in at not far short of 23 minutes.

Like so many other of their releases, there’s a variety of musical offerings which makes for an interesting listen (if you’re a fan) and a difficult and awkward listen if the band are not to your taste, although I would like to think that everybody will have time for the lead track, an edited version of one of the loveliest songs on Terror Twilight:-

mp3: Pavement – Major Leagues (edit)

One of the tensions arising from the final album was the reluctance of Malkmus, aided by producer Nigel Godrich, to accept any of songs written by Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs), which was a radical departure from the previous records. Instead, some of his songs were relegated to b-sides, although he was smart enough to keep what he considered as his best numbers back until his later solo career.

Two of his tracks appear on this EP, recorded completely separately from the sessions with Godrich for the album. The added bonus for fans of an appearance by Gary Young, the band’s original drummer who had been fired back in 1993 when his struggles with alcoholism became too much for the other members.

mp3: Pavement – Your Time To Change
mp3: Pavement – Stub Your Toe

The next two tracks are very much solo efforts by Malkmus, with one being a demo of the lead track and the other a peculiar number in which he sings in both English and French:-

mp3: Pavement – Major Leagues (demo)
mp3: Pavement – Decouvert de Soleil

And finally. From the vaults. Two covers that were recorded for BBC Radio in 1997

mp3: Pavement – The Killing Moon
mp3: Pavement – The Classical

The former was in January 1997 for The Evening Session, the show hosted by Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley, while the latter was broadcast in August 1997 as part of the band’s fourth Peel Session; it’s worth mentioning that the band was also part of the events arranged by the BBC to mark Peel’s 60th birthday in August 1999, performing six tracks live at the Maida Vale studios in London.

While both covers have the mark of Pavement on them, it’s fair to say that the Bunnymen take is the more straightforward of the two, perhaps reflecting it was broadcast in the early evening to a younger audience than would normally listen to Peel. Their take on the controversial song by The Fall, which is introduced as ‘an old family favourite’ thankfully strips out the use of the offending ‘n’ word and, as was the case with all Peel sessions, removed any swearing. It’s much slower than the original and until Malkmus utters the words ‘I never felt better in my life….’, most folk would have been hard pushed to recognise it.

I’ve a feeling most of you will hate it……

JC

Tiger

BURNING BADGERS VINYL (Part 11): TIGER

Burning Badgers Vinyl – The Seven Inches #2
Shining In The Wood – Tiger (Fierce Panda Records 1996)

SWC writes……..

In June 1996, I was a poor student, struggling to make ends meet whilst attending my seven hours a week of hard lectures. I was trying to carve out a small living on the side as a music journalist but it wasn’t really working. I had a couple of small reviews published in Melody Maker but their reviews editor had stopped phoning me (for now at least), and the woman from Select had told me that she ‘might have something for me next week’, three weeks in a row. So I decided that to tie myself over for the summer I needed to get some temporary work.

So the next Monday morning I took myself down to Chatham High Street and wandered into the first recruitment agency that I passed. A small place above a booking shop next to a wine bar. It was a quality place, the usual signs were there, the threadbare carpet, held down in the right places by gaffa tape, the freebie calendar from the Chinese Takeaway stuck to the wall with a limp looking drawing pin and a bored-looking woman behind the desk filing her nails.

She looks me up and down and I tell her that I am looking for work, only temporary over the summer holidays. I tell her that I can type, am good with numbers and am happy to travel. Basically, I’m looking for a cosy little office where I can get paid for not doing very much.

The woman looks at me and smiles a fag-stained toothy grin at me and asks me to fill a couple of forms, the photocopying is all a bit wonky on the first one and the word ‘similar’ is spelt wrong on the second one. I hand the forms back and the woman sort of grunts at me and asks me if I own a pair of gloves, I answer politely that I do.

She tells me that someone will be touch tomorrow.

The next morning at 6am, the phone in my dad’s lounge rings, and after a bit of swearing and clambering around I managed to answer it on the seventh ring, I’m fairly sure no one noticed it. It’s a guy called ‘Phil’ who tells me that a van will be collecting me from the bus stop at around seven-thirty at the top of the road. Which is where I am at seven-thirty to meet Phil. He has a tattoo on the back of his neck which reads ‘Millwall FC but he seems nice. Next to Phil in the van is ‘Baz’ he has a tattoo on his arm that reads ‘Debz’ and he is reading The Sun. I have a badge on my coat that reads ‘Ban Hunting with dogs’. I also notice that they are dressed for manual labour and I look like I am going for a stroll around the park and then a trip to the library.

I asked them what sort of work we are going to be doing today. Phil tells me (and this is an exact quote) “Removal work and shit innit”. Nearly every sentence Phil says ends ‘innit’ and nearly sentence Baz utters is sexist or rather which women he thought were fit or not. Baz weighed about 36 stone and looked like a potato, so was obviously an expert on the fairer sex.

I also realised that I failed dismally to ask Phil this morning the question that I have just asked him and it would appear that I am woefully overdressed for the scenario that I find myself in…because…

The ‘removal work and shit’ turns out to be the colloquial phrase for what used to be called ‘A Binman’. Yup for a day in June 1996 I sat in a dust lorry as it drove slowly around the streets of Canterbury and every ten minutes or so I got out and lugged bags of rubbish from one end of the street to the other whilst Baz chucked them in the back. All the while I stood there sweating and thinking to myself last week I interviewed Jarvis Cocker about his favourite crisp flavour (Roast Ox) and now here I am trying to not cry as Baz threatens to throw me in the back ‘for a joke’. Again.

The next day Baz and Phil invited me back, apparently, they were doing the bins in Faversham then, and I was ‘quite good’ at lugging bags of crap around. I politely declined their offer telling them I had another job lined up. In reality, I would rather do anything, literally anything, than spend another four hours in a dustcar with Medway’s version of the Mitchell Brothers. Saying that, they took pride in their job and were very good at it. They were hard workers.

All of which heaving and shoving brings us to the second 7 inch in Badgers Big Box of Records. (JC interjects….I had to ask SWC what was the first 7 inch in the box – it was actually one that I had previously written alongside one of the other 12″ singles in the BBoR.  I felt a bit of a dick when he told me…..)

In June 1996, Tiger, a band from Princes Risborough released their debut single, a rollicking if slightly ragged, punky affair called ‘Shining In the Wood’. In came at a time when record companies were scratching around for the next big sound. What wasn’t clear was how exactly a band like Tiger fitted into that ‘Next Big Sound’ idea.

mp3: Tiger – Shining In The Wood

The thing with Tiger is that they were uncool (mullets and quilted jackets were their thing), deliberately, it would seem and why this shouldn’t have counted against them, it sort of did. The press, certain elements of them at least, seemed to love them, but it always came back to the fact that they wore really really crap clothes and that in some way mean that the band were rubbish and couldn’t be taken seriously, a bit like my attitude towards Baz and Phil I suppose, there is a moral here about books and covers I think.

In reality, Tiger were all kinds of excellent. The band had a knack of channelling their inner Britpop and delivering a killer chorus. Even if nearly every song that they ever record consisted of them yelping over some keyboard sounds borrowed from Stereolab. Of course, Tiger being Tiger had TWO keyboardists, both of which clashed together marvellously.

‘Shining In the Wood’ is a marvellous few minutes of post-punk shouty brilliance. It hinted at a noise that didn’t really sound like anyone else around at the time or had gone immediately before them. Yes, it’s easy to jump and down and shout ‘Stereolab’ but ‘Shining In The Wood’ sounds nothing like Stereolab. It sounds more like ‘Goo’ era Sonic Youth.

Here’s the B Side if you need further evidence of their uniqueness

mp3: Tiger – Where’s The Love

After this Fierce Panda debut, the band went on to sign for Island Records and had some limited success. The follow up single ‘Race’ and their debut album ‘We Are Puppets’ were truly fantastic but like so many others who came before and after them, it all went a bit wrong after album number two.

mp3: Tiger – Race

SWC

Adam Stafford, Broken Chanter, Just Joans, Randolph's Leap, Various

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SPENDING YOUR MONEY

Dear valued member of the TVV community,

So much of the best Scottish music in recent years has emerged from small labels or, to a large extent, been self-funded.  The fact we have more or less been in a lockdown situation for most of 2020 has meant a lot of singers and bands have been less active than anyone would like.

A few have managed to get physical releases out on vinyl, while others have taken the digital route via bandcamp.  I thought, as some of you might well be thinking about gifts for Christmas, that I’d highlight a few places where your currency would be welcomed and would find its way into very deserving pockets.

I’ve long championed Adam Stafford via this and the old blog. I know that he is an acquired taste but there’s a real reward to be obtained from listening to someone who, if he hailed from NYC, LA, Berlin, Tokyo or Paris, instead of Falkirk in Central Scotland, would be hailed as a musical visionary and genius.  He’s recently released a new album – Diamonds Of A Horse Famine, via Song, By Toad Records which has been revived for the purpose of releasing this particular LP.  I was delighted that clashmusic.com gave the album the sort of praise you’d normally find round these parts:-

“Diamond Of A Horse Famine’s is a different kind of album to what we are used to. It’s more of a standard singer-songwriter affair. Or as close to that as Stafford will allow. The songs are more immediate than on previous albums too, implying that everything was recorded in a couple of takes, rather than through numerous extended jams.

What ‘Diamond Of A Horse Famine’ shows is that Stafford is back to his best, but he isn’t recreating his previous albums for the sake of it. Nothing Stafford does it for the sake of it. His guitar work is exquisite and his ability to skew his guitar into contorted loops has set him apart from his peers, but he doesn’t employ his box of tricks in the same way that he did on ‘Imaginary Walls Collapse’, ‘Taser Revelations’ or ‘Fire Behind the Curtain’. The solo on ‘Salve’ might be his finest to date. However, the songs are equally as compelling.

This is a brave album that deserves praise for its honesty. Rumour has it that there is another album ready to go. If this is true, then Adam Stafford is a slave to his art and his best may yet to be heard.”

Copies of the album are available via the Song, By Toad page on Bandcamp. Click here for more, including the chance to try before you buy.  This was the single released earlier in the year as a taster:-

mp3: Adam Stafford – Thirty Years of Bad Road

Olive Grove Records is run by a very hard-working and unassuming man called Lloyd Meredith, someone who I’ve got to know well since starting this blog back in 2007.  Lloyd also started out as a blogger but he then dipped his toe and ultimately immersed his whole body into supporting music through the establishment of the label which has just turned ten years of age, a happy event which has been marked by the release of Get Into The Grove, a twelve-track compilation from many of the artists on the label.  It can be found here, with the digital version already available and the vinyl edition due imminently.

It was back in 2016 that Olive Grove released the album Cowardly Deeds by the consistently excellent Randolph’s Leap, with this being the opening track:-

mp3: Randolph’s Leap – Back Of My Mind

Watch out for new material from Randolph’s Leap in 2021, with a new single already out as a taster.  Click here.

Broken Chanter, in 2019, released a fantastic self-titled album in 2019.  It’s the work of David MacGregor, formerly the co-front of Kid Canaveral, and it proved to be one of my favourite records of that year, looking as if it would form the perfect platform for bigger and greater things in 2020.  Sadly, the COVID situation putting a stop to live shows and making it impossible for musicians from different cities to work together has really had a dreadful impact on David’s plans.  He’s kept things going somewhat by recording some material purely for digital release on Bandcamp, as well as coming up with a few merchandising ideas to try and help keep his head above water.  Just last week, he decided to release a fourth and final single from the debut album, going with what many have long thought is its most beautiful and mesmerising track:-

mp3: Broken Chanter – Don’t Move To Denmark

The single comes with three remixes and can be bought here at Bandcamp.  You’ll also be able to click through to the page where the debut album is located and give its individual tracks a listen, after which you may very well be tempted to buy a copy.  Especially if you’re a listener with good taste……

A couple of COVID fundraising things to give consideration to, with one that’s been out for a few months and another which is due to become available later this week.

Last Night From Glasgow (LNFG) is another incredibly busy label based in my home city.  It was at the start of the COVID outbreak that it, with the help and generous support of the musicians associated with the label decided to take some action to help others involved in the industry:-

It was clear to LNFG that our valued venues and stores would struggle unless we did something to help. So over the course of the UK Coronavirus lockdown we invited all of our artists to record – at home, whilst in isolation – a cover of their favourite past LNFG release. We mixed, mastered and manufactured the album on Vinyl and CD. Selling it and passing all proceeds to our partner venues and record shops. We will continue to collect revenues throughout the year and distribute it amongst local independent stores and venues. Tracks from : Broken Chanter, Gracious Losers, Sister John, Cloth, Close Lobsters, Annie Booth, Lola In Slacks, L-space, Nicol & Elliott, Zoe Bestel, Medicine Men, Deer Leader, Bis, Slime City, The Martial Arts, The Muldoons, Life Model, Mt. Doubt, Vulture Party, Foundlings; Andre Salvador and Lemon Drink.

It’s a very fine venture, and copies can be purchased from here, coming in a range of formats, including various coloured vinyl, CD and digital.

The upcoming release features a range of more established singers and bands. Whole Lotta Roadies is a digital/CD-only effort:-

The Fruit Tree Foundation is delighted to announce the creation of a brand-new unique album, ‘Whole Lotta Roadies’, put together by some of Scotland’s most loved musical artists and their crew. The project is the idea of Rod Jones of Idlewild, who saw first-hand the devastating effect the pandemic was having on all aspects of live shows, and in particular, those who rely on live events for a living, many now facing the prospect of an entire year of cancelled bookings.

On the line-up for this one-off recorded extravaganza are Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, Twin Atlantic, Arab Strap, The Proclaimers, KT Tunstall, Fatherson, Emma Pollock, Honeyblood, Kathryn Joseph, The Rezillos, The Xcerts, and Idlewild.

I’ve pre-ordered a copy and looking forward to getting the e-mail telling me I can download and listen.  Click here if you want to do likewise.

Finally, The Just Joans have released a Christmas single.  For those of you who don’t know the band, they’ve been described by one critic as the missing link between The Magentic Fields and The Proclaimers – make of that what you will.  Click here for more.

All of the above come very highly recommended, so if you have a few spare notes and coins upon your person, it would be very nice if you supported one or more of the above.

With thanks

JC

Various

GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT: ECHORICH

A GUEST POSTING by ECHORICH

Gazing and Dreaming – An ICA of Opening Tracks

People who like a genre, or even a sub-genre of Rock + Roll or Pop Music usually hate the tag that the Music Press gives it. The bands which created a sub-genre of indie/alternative Rock which came out of the UK in the very late 80s and into the early 90s, featuring a mixture of fuzzy, distorted and ethereal guitars, obscure or multi-layered vocals and sometimes turned up the psychedelia, were herded under the tag Shoegaze and ultimately Dream Pop. The lore revolves around a reviewer from Sounds Magazine describing how Moose singer Russell Yates would tape his lyrics to the floor and look down at them as he sang. It was picked up by NME and a genre was born.

I have never had any problem with the Shoegaze tag. Bands since Jesus and Mary Chain had been paying more attention to their guitars and pedals than the audience for years, so I thought, yeah, kinda appropriate, if obvious, but also a name that could be interpretive. The range of sound that is gathered up under the tags of Shoegaze and Dream Pop is pretty broad and was ever-changing as bands reacted to what was going on around them in music. I tend to like much of the Shoegaze I listen to, to be hard or harsh, but there are so many examples of that ethereal feel that I love as well.

Here is, by no means, the be all and end all selection of Opening Tracks from Shoegaze/Dream Pop bands. When I put it together and listened back, I was very satisfied. Hope you are too.

Side A

1. Stray – Lush (Spooky)

This opener is a great example of how light and complex their sound can be. Miki’s vocals are like a that of a Post Punk Siren. There’s danger and darkness in all this song’s beauty.

2. Lannoy Point – Ride (Weather Diaries)

Proof that you can’t keep a great and vital band down, especially when they still have so much to contribute 20 years on. Opening the masterpiece that is Weather Diaries, Lannoy Point is a slow burn that picks up pace and intensity as it goes. Is there anything as beautiful as the twin guitars of Andy Bell and Mark Gardener? I don’t think so.

3. Spanish Air – Slowdive (Just For A Day)

Spanish Air is dark and inward. It is full of psychedelia and some 60s Garage Rock moves, but it’s the homage to an earlier sound of Cocteau Twins that I was originally attracted to when I first heard Slowdive.

4. Way The World Is – Pale Saints (A Comfortable Madness)

Starting like some lysergic freakout, Way The World Is introduced me to an album that, for me, stands way above the fray of the genre. It’s a short song that makes it point and ends the trip quickly, leaving you in limbo. A Comfortable Madness is full of inward twists and turns and every time I listen to it, I find something new to focus my attention on.

5. Breather – Chapterhouse (Whirlpool)

Breather, and indeed the album Whirlpool, straddles Indie and Shoegaze like no other band. I seem to remember them being initially very popular, because the sound was confident and catchy, but this ended up being their downfall with the music journos.

Side B

6. Everywhere – Cranes (Forever)

Cranes were a problem for many. Were they Goth, Indie, Shoegaze? Yes. Alison Shaw’s vocals were the darker side of Clare Grogan, while the sound veered into Cure territory an awful lot over the years, but this opener from 1993’s hit all the right notes for me. It apes the opening cords of Patti Smith’s Dancing Barefoot and just takes off from there.

7. Texture – The Catherine Wheel (Ferment)

Ferment is a great album. I don’t care how much of a hit to my credibility that statement may be, but it is so well made, so fully realized, so confident in its execution, that it draws me in every time I listen to it. This opener was every bit as good as the album’s radio hit Black Metallic. Rob Dickinson also has one of the sexiest vocal deliveries of the genre.

8. Super Falling Star – Sterolab (Peng!)

The opener of their debut. You can just tell this was a band that would take you on a journey.

9. Sci-Flyer – Swervedriver (Raise)

This was almost the opener of the ICA, but then I thought, I love when the penultimate track on an album hits you from out of nowhere and lays you out flat. Your welcome.

10. Only Shallow – My Bloody Valentine (Loveless)

Sighted as/blamed for starting the genre with their Isn’t Anything album, My Bloody Valentine are so many things to so many people. They will always be “Gazers” to me, sometimes stretching boundaries, other times just playing to make a great racket. Only Shallow is among my favorites by them because it winds you up so tight and then spins you free.

Echorich

And here are both sides of the ICA as stand-alone listens.  They work well, and I say that as someone who isn’t a huge fan of the sub-genre!! (JC)

Gazing and Dreaming: Side A (20:38)
Gazing and Dreaming: Side B (20:24)

R.E.M.

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF R.E.M. (Part 24)

When it was announced that R.E.M.’s ninth album was going to see a return to the rock guitar sound of their mid-late 80s period, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not that I didn’t like the acoustic-led format of the previous two records, but I craved something more from them this time, something different. Little did I know that Monster would be a very different-sounding R.E.M. record – loud, distorted and effects-swathed guitars in abundance, and Michael Stipe sounding more confident than he’d ever been before.

To introduce us to the new album, What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? was released as the lead single on 27th September 1994. The opening chords put a smile on my face when I first heard it. This was exactly what I’d been hoping for. It also helped that the song was immediately catchy, but lyrically obscure as hell. Stipe’s explanation is that it’s about the Generation X phenomenon in contemporary mass media, sung in character as an older critic whose information consists exclusively of media products.

“I wrote that protagonist as a guy who’s desperately trying to understand what motivates the younger generation, who has gone to great lengths to try and figure them out, and at the end of the song it’s completely fucking bogus. He got nowhere.”

The song’s title – quoted in the opening line – is inspired by an incident involving US news anchor Dan Rather. In 1986, while walking to his apartment in Manhattan, Rather was attacked and punched from behind by a man who demanded to know “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” while a second assailant chased and beat him. As the assailant pummeled and kicked Rather, he kept repeating the question.

If you listen carefully, you may notice the song slowing down as it approaches its conclusion. For years, I thought there was a fault with the CD pressing, but I’ve since realised it’s present in all subsequent issues and formats. The reason, according to Peter Buck?

“The truth is, Mike [Mills] slowed down the pace and we all followed, and then I noticed he looked strange. It turned out he had appendicitis and we had to rush him to the hospital. So we never wound up redoing it.”

The song became one of the band’s biggest worldwide hits, and their third top 10 single in the UK, peaking at #9. It was issued in three formats – 7”, cassette and CD (though a 12” was put out overseas). All formats contained a radio edit of Kenneth, which is identical to the album version save the very last line which replaces the lyric “Don’t fuck with me” with “the frequency”. The 7” and cassette both featured a ‘K version’ of the a-side. The ‘K’ stands for that dreaded word Karaoke, so, therefore, it’s an instrumental version!

mp3: R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? (radio version)
mp3: R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? (K Version)

As you’ll discover, all the singles from Monster contained live songs on the CDs. Many of them were recorded at the same concert which, when compiled, create the almost full set of a show the band played for Greenpeace at the 40 Watt Club in the band’s hometown of Athens, GA. on 19 November1992. I say “almost” as the set opener was played twice and one of the versions appears on a later release, which means for this single, tracks 2, 3 and 4 from the set make up the CD. The originals all appeared on the then current LP ‘Automatic For The People’.

mp3: R.E.M. – Monty Got A Raw Deal (live – Greenpeace)
mp3: R.E.M. – Everybody Hurts (live – Greenpeace)
mp3: R.E.M. – Man On The Moon (live – Greenpeace)

It’s worth noting that fans like myself already had the full concert in bootleg form. Such good quality it was that the same source recording was used for the official release on these singles, as well as the (almost) complete show’s official album release in 2017.

Last year, Monster was reissued as a 25th Anniversary edition which included brand new mixes of every song.

JC and I decided that we would include the new remixes of the singles as bonus tracks in this series. Scott Litt did the remix honours, having long been dissatisfied with the job he did on the original. Some of the new mixes are incredible, and you’ll hear a couple of them in due course. But some don’t quite do it for me. The new version of Kenneth, for instance, removes some of the guitars and takes away some of the original’s uniqueness. Stipe’s vocals have been pushed out front and overall it has more of a live feel. In fact, it wouldn’t sound out of place on the follow-up album New Adventures In Hi-Fi, but I still prefer the original. It’s also 20 seconds shorter, with the closing refrain clipped.

mp3: R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? (remix)

The Robster

PAWS

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #240: PAWS

From all music:-

A Scottish band who play with punk ferocity but have a remarkable knack for pop hooks, PAWS emerged out of Glasgow in the early part of the 2010s with a sound that took influence from ’90s indie rock and fuzz-pop. Over time, PAWS’ sound evolved from a more raucous tone to the massive streamlined rock of 2016’s No Grace, before scaling down to reveal their softer and side on 2019’s Your Church on My Bonfire.

Phillip Taylor (vocals, guitar), Josh Swinney (drums), and Matt Scott (bass) initially formed as a cabin studio project and started recording at their very first practice session. Following a small run of cassettes and a split 7″ single for Edinburgh-based Gerry Loves Records, PAWS released their Mermaid EP and then went on to tour for most of 2010. Their debut album, Cokefloat!, was released on Fat Cat Records in 2012. The record was well received by the music press, and their subsequent heavy touring in the U.S. and Europe — alongside the likes of Japandroids, Bleached, the Breeders, and Ty Segall — amassed a dedicated and loyal fan base by 2013. They then parted ways with bassist Matt Scott, and Ryan Drever was recruited to fill the vacant space.

Later in 2013, the trio traveled to upstate New York, where they recorded their sophomore album at Mice Parade-founder Adam Pierce’s home studio. Titled Youth Culture Forever, the record was released in 2014. It went on to receive very positive reviews and made many end-of-year lists as well as being nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year award. The band toured Europe and North America extensively to promote the release, including a well-documented schedule-clash with former Smiths frontman Morrissey. Completed in the summer 2015 but not released until 2016, PAWS’ mighty third effort, No Grace, boasted the production talents of blink-182’s Mark Hoppus. Following Drever’s departure later that year, the bass role was filled by newcomer John Bonnar.

After enduring a difficult period that among other trials saw the death of Taylor’s father, PAWS regrouped to record the quieter and more emotionally resonant Your Church on My Bonfire in 2019.

PAWS are a particular long-time favourite of Jacques the Kipper, and he’s seen them play a fair few times, mainly in Edinburgh.  I gave the band a passing mention in June 2015 as part of a look at some new(ish) talents who were emerging on the scene in Scotland. As I said at that time, I was late on picking up on them but became a convert after catching them perform in a tiny pub venue in the east end of Glasgow on the launch night of a cultural festival linked to the staging of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

I’ve decided to go back to the early days and feature and one of a number of very fine cuts from the album Cokefloat!

mp3: PAWS – Sore Tummy

This one also benefits from a guest backing/co-vocal from Alice Costelloe, who at the time (2012) was part of the London based group, Big Deal.

JC